A “fatwa” is simply a considered opinion of a Muslim jurisconsult. Such opinions are numerous. First of all, almost all the major Shiite Grand Ayatollahs have condemned Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. You could say that is easy, since Shiites don’t generally like Wahhabis. But they are the leaders of 120 million Muslims (some ten percent of the 1.2 billion). So that is one. Tracking these things down is time-consuming, but this should do: Ayatollah Muhammad Husain Fadlallah of Lebanon condemns Osama Bin Laden.

So then what about the Sunni world? The leading moral authority for Sunnis is the rector or Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Seminary/ University in Cairo, Egypt. Al-Azhar is perhaps the world’s oldest continuous university and has been since the time of Saladin a major center of Sunni religious authority. The current incumbent is Shaikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi. So what about Tantawi and Bin Laden?

I don’t personally care for Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He is an old-time Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood preacher who fled to Qatar and now has a perch at al-Jazeera. But he does have some virtues. He is enormously popular among Muslim fundamentalists. And, he absolutely despises Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Al-Qaradawi has repeatedly condemned the latter. He even gave a fatwa that it was a duty of Muslims to fight alongside the US in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda! See also: Yusuf al-Qaradawi condemns al-Qaeda.

There are also substantial Muslim communities in Europe with leaderships that have explicitly condemned Bin Laden. E.g.:

Friedman also does refer to a major conference of Muslim clerics, thinkers and notables wound up just Wednesday that made a powerful statement about religious tolerance and condemned everything Osama Bin Laden stands for. But he seems oddly unaware of the significance of having Grand Ayatollah Sistani, Grand Imam of al-Azhar Seminary Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, and many other great Muslim authorities sign off on this epochal statement of Muslim ecumenism.

The statement forbids one Muslim to declare another “not a Muslim” if the believer adheres to any of the mainstream legal rites of Sunnism and Shiism. The whole basis of al-Qaeda is to call the Muslim leaders of countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Shiites, “not Muslims.” The statement also demands that engineers should please stop pretending to issue fatwas, which should be left to trained clerical jurisconsults. This para. is also a slam at Bin Laden.

PS As for Friedman’s main point, that Muslims haven’t done a good job of fighting jihadi ideology and terrorism, it is bizarre. The Algerian government fought a virtual civil war to put down political Islam, in which over 100,000 persons died. The Egyptians jailed 20,000 or 30,000 radicals for thought crimes and killed 1500 in running street battles in the 1990s and early zeroes. Al-Qaeda can’t easily strike in the Middle East precisely because Syria, Egypt, Algeria, etc. have their number and have undertaken massive actions against them. What does Friedman want? And, besides, he is wrong that this is only a Muslim problem. In the global age all problems are everybody’s. That’s part of flat world, too, Tom.

2 Responses

Anonymous

Why all this turmoil? Just because these dominians have cheap hydro-carbons that most of this world at this current time are intrested in! This might be a blessing as well a curse… Imposition of ideas alien to the native culture is always a problem, without allowing adequate time for them to evolve on their own…

mc974

In Pakistan, Prof Tahir ul-Qadri is a prominent leader of one among many of islamic grups and so not representative of all Muslims. But, as you probably know, Taliban movement have their roots (in islamic jurisprudence, sipiritual lineage etc) in the Deoband movement. And it can be noticed that a conference was held at the Darul Uloom of Deoband to condemn Terrorism in June 2008. (I make some point here, there is a distintion between terrorism and resistance to the oppresor or the invaders ! But, of course, some resistance had passed the barrer and goes into terrorism act… but have they another solution ?). They also have a lot of wahhabis saudi-arabian scholars who have condamned terrorism attack in the past. Ibn Baz, Al-Uthaymin, Ali Fawzan among them (if I perfectly remember.I will also say that a salafi scholar as Shaykh Muqbil from Yemen have also comdemned terrorism and Ben Laden.I'm living here in Reunion Island, and I can't remember how many times, Muslims theologians of Reunion (who have made their studies in Islamic University in countries as UK, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia) have condamned terrorism and civil attacks !

Here, I would make a point about the fatwa issued by Darul Uloom Deoband, personnaly, I think that it has a little effect because, the Talibans are ,in my humble opinion, more in an optic of resistance to invaders than of a world Islamic Jihad like groups such as Al-Qaeda.

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